Delirium
by La'Adon
Summary: The final battle is over, and the wizarding world is struggling to recover. Harry himself faces upheaval when Voldemort's undoing has a shocking result: the miraculous return of all his victims, including James Potter. But someone is still missing...


Harry Potter stood alone and shaking in the middle of the great hall. His chest shuddered with each laboured breath, great draughts of air which jammed in his throat and left his body aching. His arm was rigid and trembling, outstretched before him, his fingers curling and uncurling rapidly around the wand clutched in their quivering grip. His clothes were ripped and bloody, and all around him was wreckage and darkness.

"Ginny!" he called again, his voice raw. "Ginny!"

The viscous darkness around him was impenatrable, the piles of wreckage revealing nothing. He sucked in another thick breath, turning sharply from side to side, the weak glow from his wand tip glinting off shards of metal and glass in the debris. Panic was cold and thrashing in the pit of his stomach.

Suddenly, to his left, he heard a noise. He whipped around, blinking furiuosly against the freezing sweat collected on his face. He tremblingly tightened his grip on the wand, raising it higher in attempt to see. "Ginny?" he whispered. "Is it you? Please…"

Suddenly a figure lurched out of the darkness, screaming and clawing. Harry whipped his arm back, and the shape slammed into him before he could force out a curse. Blind fear rampaged through him. What little air he had tore out of his lungs in a searing rush, and he felt something sharp rip at his chest. Before he could cry out, there was nothing but the black again.

Harry pulled in a breath with effort, sumoning strength, noticing with a jolt the thick line of blood that was soaking through his shirt.

"_Lumos_!" he shouted, his voice breaking in strain. The light jumped higher, and Harry felt his heart jump with it as he spotted a crumpled shape at the far end of the hall. He threw himself forward into a run, at its side in a few desperate seconds. He pulled the girl's limp form into his arms, staring in panic at her bloodless cheeks and waxen lips.

"Ginny… Ginny…" He looked around quickly and lowered his wand. "_Ennervate_!"

Her eyes opened with a snap, wide and petrified. "Harry?" Her voice was weak, and she seemed to have trouble seeing him. "Harry?"

"It's me, it's me, shh…" He raised his wand again, casting the fading glow around the omniously quiet room. Just minutes ago, it seemed like, the castle had been full of rushing people, screams, the smell of blood and sweat, as Harry had fought his way against the writhing, terrified masses running desperately for escape. His exhaustion was telling on his strength, magical and physical, and something seemed to be buzzing behind his eyes. The darkness outside the wand's shrinking illumination was complete, and Harry was every minute more horrifyingly aware of the terrible danger they were both in. He was not stupid enough to think that his last desperate curse had finished Voldemort, not stupid enough to fall for the blazing light and the sudden emptiness; he knew something was horribly wrong in its pressing silence, and he knew that something was very wrong with the way Ginny was looking at him. They had to get out of there- had to regroup, rejoin the others.

"Ginny, come on, we've got to go. Right now. Come on." He pulled her to her feet, his eyes ceaselessly scanning the thick blackness, his wand extended and ready.

"Harry? No, wait… We've got to… He's here, Harry."

"I know, Gin, but we need help."

"No." She pulled away from him suddenly, staring up at his face. "He went that way, Harry. We've _got_ to follow him." Her gaze grabbed him and locked, and she pulled his arm sharply in the direction of the darkness. He was just beginning to move when something uncoiled behind her eyes.

He jerked away, staring at her intently. She furrowed her brow and asked him something, but it was as if she was speaking from far below him. As he stood squinting he felt the strength began to ebb from his body. The ground dipped and titled wildly beneath him. The girl's form began to… flicker. There was no other word for it. The shape behind it was long and thin, and his scrambled senses caught a glimpses of red in the darkness. With a sickening lurch, he knew.

He reached down with a shaking hand and touched the gash on his chest, the blood coating his fingtertips almost black. Whatever had come slamming out of the darkness had done something to him, his spinning brain decided. He stumbled backward, away from the thing before him, and his shaking hand raised the wand again.

He saw her mouth move, _Harry_, and then his vision began to narrow. Panic swamped his remaining senses. All he could smell was dust and the heavy pull of stone- could hear no breathing except his own. He blinked heavily, and faintly saw the thing step toward him. Not like this, he thought faintly. Not like this.

It reached out a hand, the fingers white and grasping, and with a sudden shout of rage and a whirl of strength he whipped his wand behind his head and swung in down again, a curse bubbling and bursting from his body, fear and rage and pain blended into a single word that ripped from his throat and burst from his wand in a torrent of energy.

In the suspended moment before its impact, the thing before him- half evil, half girl- blurred and separated, slipping apart, sliding away, until the two halves were nearly distinct. Sick horror filled him as he watched Voldemort frantically struggle to disentangle himself. The next second, the spell crashed into the mingled forms and in a terrible rush and roar of energy and power, the world seemed to explode in a shockwave of searing heat and ferocious white light. The next second it retreated in a whirling, sucking vacuum of iron cold and crushing blackness, and Harry felt rip the power from his body and throw him to the ground like he was a toy. He heard a scream, and then there was an implosion of pain as stone cracked into his head.

The cold was gone. In its place was oblivion.

The first thing that woke him was the rain. It pounded into his limp body like hammers, and the wetness covered him in shivering, sliding chills. His head was too heavy to lift. Struggling to move, he felt what ever was coating his eyelids crack and give way.

Harry Potter opened his eyes, and came face to face with his father.


End file.
